Review: Sony Xperia neo L smartphone

The Android smartphone market is growing by leaps and bounds and not wanting to let Samsung and HTC corner all the expanding growth, Sony is betting big on it.

The Android smartphone market is growing by leaps and bounds and not wanting to let Samsung and HTC corner all the expanding growth, Sony is betting big on it. After a patchy ICS update to other smartphones of the Xperia series which drew a lot of ire from its users, Sony is launching three new Android phones - neo L, Go and Ion - this quarter. All three are being launched in the Xperia series. Neo L expands the Xperia series in the mid-range and succeeds neo V, which was launched about a year ago.

Unlike its haloed siblings like Xperia S, Xperia U and Xperia Arc S, the neo L runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system straight out-of-the-box, which gives it a slight edge over others as most phones being sold in market are still based on Gingerbread. However, in an already flooded Android market, the question remains whether Sony Xperia neo L will stand out at a price of Rs 18,499, especially when HTC One V is available at Rs 18,599 and the similarly-priced dual core-powered Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is scheduled to hit India in a few months.

We played around a bit with the phone and here's what we think of it:

Looks and dimensionsSony seems to have deviated from the laws of genetics in case of neo L. Hence, its design doesn't bear much resemblance with the sleekness of its recent breed of Xperia S, Xperia U, Xperia P phones. Its shape, however, has glimpses of some older Xperia phones such as the Arc and neo V, but unlike the thin beauty of the Arc, neo L is fatter.

The phone measures 4.8x2.4x0.5 inches, which may seem to be sleek but once you hold the phone, it isn't really light. It weighs 131.5 grams against the Xperia neo V which weighs 126 grams, and Xperia Arc S which weighs 117 grams. Other contemporaries also weigh less, such as HTC One V, which weighs 115 grams and Samsung Galaxy S Advance, which weighs 120 grams.HardwareThough the phone is good to look at, it is like a fingerprint-magnate and any user would be hard-pressed to keep it devoid of smudges for even a few minutes. It has a glossy and rather brittle seeming plastic casing for a back cover that has to be kept clean regularly, sometimes many times a day! The frame is lined with chrome, which certainly gives it a sleek look and makes it appear similar to the neo V, Arc and Arc S. A 3.5-mm audio jack is placed in the top-centre of the phone which gives it an avoidable ugly bulge. On the left is a mini USB port for charging and data transfer, and on the right panel are the buttons for power and volume and a small speaker.

Sony Xperia neo L sports a 4-inch HD TFT touchscreen with 854x480 pixel resolution, slightly larger than HTC One V's, but smaller than that of Motorola Atrix 2 and Samsung Galaxy S Advance. Below the screen are four physical buttons (in the same curved shape as the three buttons in the Arc) namely Back, Home, Menu and Search. These buttons are stiff, small and you may sometimes accidentally tread upon the on-screen controls while pressing the hard hardware buttons. Likewise, the buttons for power and volume are not well placed if the phone is held in one hand. Since, the glossy body of Xperia neo L is rather slippery, even not-so-clumsy users might end up dropping it a few times.

Ice Cream Sandwich integrationThe phone runs on Android 4.0 out-of-the-box and that is an important selling point since users would not have to wait for an update, a la Motorola Atrix 2. However, the HTC One V, priced similar to the Xperia neo L, also offers a premium Android 4.0 straight from the box.

Users can choose between seven pre-installed neon-based Ice Cream Sandwich themes in the Sony Xperia neo L, which are seen in the background when the home screen and menu are open. The overall user experience is quite smooth and fluid. Sony's Timescape has made its way to this phone as well, so that users can see the recent updates, tweets, messages etc by all contacts on a single scrollable window from the home screen.

Sony has done well by adding a number of useful widgets in the Xperia neo L that add to its functionality, such as the Gallery View, which allows users to access pics, videos and music from the same widget. The dock/menu bar located at the bottom of the five home screens is also customisable and can hold a total of four applications. Users can create folders if they want to add more applications to this dock.

ConnectivityThe phone comes loaded with all modern connectivity options available in a mid-range smartphone, such as Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, 3G, GPRS, EDGE and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and EDR. It has GTalk, Gmail and a combined inbox for all emails. The social networking integration, including Facebook and Twitter, will make it a suitable choice for the youth.

Call clarity is decent, but only in a quite room. When we stepped out on a noisy street, the sound became muffled, which will be a dampener for those who travel a lot.

Music and videosThe stock music player in Sony Xperia neo L will be welcomed by any audiophile, as it features a host of features in addition to the standard music playing options.

In the music player, tapping on the on-screen button placed in the middle of the bottom row shows a pop-up with options like Find Music Video on YouTube, Get more@PlayNow, Search Artist Info on Wikipedia, Search for Lyrics on Google, Search Karaoke Videos on YouTube, along with the option to find more extensions. This will contribute towards a rich music experience for any user. The standard features of the music player include customisable playlists, folder view for music, including tabs named Artists, Albums, Tracks and Playlists.

TrackID is yet another add-on that will be favoured by audiophiles, as it shows all the details of the song being played based upon the title and artist info. It will track the data over an internet connection and show a host of details, such as artist info, lyrics etc. However, this feature proves to be rather redundant considering that Sony has already included such features in the stock music player.

Sony Xperia neo L's default video player can play videos at 720p easily, though we expect it to hang after other processes eat up more RAM. The stock video player has only three options, forward, back and start/pause.